


Had Enough

by NorthwesternInsanity



Series: Dokken European Tour Mishaps [3]
Category: Dokken, Music RPF
Genre: Angst, Calling it quits, Frustration, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 07:48:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14515713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorthwesternInsanity/pseuds/NorthwesternInsanity
Summary: The night Dokken decided to call "that's it!" on their European tour.





	Had Enough

Don awoke in the middle of the night with a start. He was uncertain in his disoriented, half-asleep state, but that had been a pretty substantial noise that had woken him up. A hard thump on the carpet.

Then, blinking his vision into focus, he became aware of the bathroom light being on. And that Mick wasn't in his bed.

Then a weak moan from the floor.

_Oh, crap!_ Don threw back his covers, slung his legs over the side of the bed, and hopped to his feet.

Mick was sprawled on the floor on his side. He seemed to weakly reach out with his arms, trying to grasp for his bed, which was closer to him, to pull himself up, but he couldn't reach it.

"Holy shit -Mick, what happened?" Don hissed. "Are you sick? Do you not feel well? What's the matter? -you have to tell me _right now._ That's an order."

He knew Mick wasn't drunk, which would have been the least concerning reason that could have explained Mick being on the floor. He hadn't been drunk when they left the venue, and he'd gone to bed as soon as they'd gotten to the hotel. Though there was festivities backstage, Mick had been saying he felt tired and had a headache after the show, and had chosen to lie down on the couch. That had been concerning enough, as it was unlike Mick. Don had hoped Mick had just come down with some bug, but this seemed pretty serious for him to be sprawled on the floor without the energy to get back up.

"I'm sore - _everywhere_ ," he moaned. "Still have a headache too..."

"How'd you fall down?" asked Don.

"I just woke up and felt like-" Mick motioned to his stomach. "Off -it doesn't really hurt, but I don't feel good. I thought I had to go to the bathroom. I guess I didn't. But I feel all dizzy and weak in my arms and legs. It's all heavy..."

Don helped Mick roll over off his side so that he lay flat on his back, then tried to get a look in his eyes. His pupils at least didn't look off, but his speech pattern seemed like it wasn't entirely coherent.

"Can you try and sit up first before trying to stand up?"

A pained expression crossed Mick's face as if he was trying with all his effort and couldn't.

"Can't do it?"

Mick squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. "I'm getting dizzier."

"Let's try this." Don slid one arm under Mick's back, held Mick's hand in his other, and helped pull Mick up into a sitting position. "Do you feel okay like this?"

"Little dizzy. Vision went a bit dark when I went up.

"Well, I'm going to keep holding your hand so you don't fall back hard if you can't, but I'm going to let you go and see if you can stay up, okay?" explained Don. He was beginning to feel pretty worried -Mick was leaning heavily against him and didn't feel like he'd be able to stay up.

"I'll try."

Don cautiously pulled back from holding his arm around Mick's back. Almost immediately, Mick's eyes lost focus and he swayed backwards, gently hitting the carpet, Don's hold on his hand keeping him from falling right down.

_Not good._ Don took in a deep breath, then slowly exhaled, trying to keep from panicking.

"Okay, Mick, that's it. We're going to take you to the hospital," said Don firmly.

Mick moaned, sluggishly shaking his head in protest, but being too weak to try getting up and fighting Don on it.

Don looked Mick in his dull eyes. "I think you already know that you don't have a choice in the matter. I'm not giving you a choice on it, and if George and Jeff are in their right senses, they're not going to give you one either."

Mick just looked back up into Don's panicked eyes and stared, silently confirming he indeed knew.

Don looked at the clock.

"I'm gonna go wake them up, Mick. They need to know what's going on, and this here is just the tip of the iceberg of what we need to discuss."

Mick weakly nodded with another small whimper.

Don went out in the hall and knocked on the door across from his room with Mick, then pressed his ear to the door to make sure he had knocked loudly enough for at least Jeff or George heard.

He heard a small, garbled moan -probably one of the two waking up.

"George?" murmured Jeff sleepily.

"Hmmm?" 

"Iz'at the door?"

"Better nn'be," groaned George.

Out in the hall, Don knocked harder.

This time, he heard a loud, agitated groan from inside.

"What?! Who are you? What is it?! It's like, what? -four in the morning, y'know?!"

Without question, that was George.

Inside, Jeff untangled his limbs from George's, it having been a night which they'd fallen asleep cuddling, and got up for the door.

"I think I might know... Except for either of those two to be up at this hour, something's up," murmured Jeff.

He opened the door, meeting a Don with tired eyes reading half of annoyance and half fearful.

George looked over from the bed, growled, and tossed his pillow over his head, going back down hard on his stomach.

"For pity's fuckin' sake, I shoulda known..."

"Now's not the time for that, George," said Don caustically.

"What's the matter?" asked Jeff.

"You knew Mick wasn't doing well last night," Don started. "He tried to get up and collapsed. I'm talking like a deadweight -he can't keep himself sitting up on his own to get up without my help, and he barely even tried to argue when I said we needed to take him to get checked out."

Jeff's eyes grew huge. "Oh, shit!" he hissed.

George sat up, reaching over to turn on the lamp, his demeanor changing.

"You said he didn't argue about going to the hospital? _Mick?"_

"Since I was just talking about Mick and I don't have anyone else in my room tonight, I don't know who _else_ I'd be talking about," Don spat sarcastically. " _Of course_ I'm talking about Mick. He kind of moaned when I told him he needed to go there, but didn't say a thing after that. He just looked at me all blank and spaced out."

George groaned, rubbing his eyes and slinging his feet over the edge of the bed. Jeff was already walking back into the room to get dressed.

"Well then, I guess we do have to go to the hospital. I guess Mick has even worse timing than you usually do, getting us up at fucking 4:30 in the morning," George growled.

"Now's not the time for that either, George. It's really not. I don't like being up at this hour any more than you, and you're pushing my buttons on top of it."

George snorted angrily.

After hesitating a moment, Jeff went with his clothes into the bathroom. It was unlikely for anyone else to go down the hall at this hour, but fans running around could be crazy, and he wasn't going to chance it changing in the open.

"Shut the damn door so we can get changed!" George snapped.

Sighing and shaking his head, Don closed the door.

"You two had better not go back to sleep," he threatened.

"You think we would with the lights on and already being up now?!" George his voice.

"George!" Jeff warned in a low strain. "And Don. Both of you; it's too early for everyone else staying here for shouting out in the hall!"

George sighed and finished getting dressed. Don went back to his room to finish getting dressed and to help Mick get ready, but left the bolt thrown so that George and Jeff could get in to help him.

"I don't think you have to worry about getting judged too badly if you're not in street clothes," said Don, assessing Mick, who was wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt. "We'll just get dressed to go outside in the weather. You having chills or anything?"

Mick listlessly shook his head. "No. The opposite, actually."

"Alright, then we'll take you the way you are, just with a rain jacket." Don helped Mick sit up again, noticing how dry Mick felt to the touch for being warm to the touch and feeling hot. Hurriedly, he reached up to the bed and grabbed another pillow for Mick to support himself on, then went to the bathroom and filled up a glass with water.

"Sip on this, Mick," he ordered. "You still need to go to the hospital, but I think you might feel a little better if you do."

Mick weakly drank from the glass. Don had to help him hold it, and only looked up when Jeff pushed the door open.

"Ready?" he asked. "George called a cab to come get us. It's on the way."

"Good," said Don. "Almost ready. Jeff, could you do me a favor?"

"Sure, what is it?"

"If you go into the closet and look on the left, Mick's jacket is on one of the hangers. If you could get it and bring it down here -I'm helping him sit up-"

"Oh, sure." Jeff pulled Mick's rain jacket out of the closet and came down on the floor next to Mick and Don. "You alright, Mick?"

"Give or take, somewhat," Mick murmured. "Fine and dandy, how 'bout that?" he said sarcastically.

"Yeah, you don't look alright," Jeff agreed. "This tour's been rough; I get it."

Don just silently helped Mick into his jacket and prepared to get Mick up from the floor with Jeff's help. The tour definitely had been rough, and he had every intention of talking about it next with George and Jeff.

An hour later, Mick was checked into a low-level intensive care unit, and Don was having that very conversation about the complications of the tour with George and Jeff.

"I just want to go home, to be honest," moaned Don in what was verging on a whimper, scrubbing his hands over his face with exhaustion.

George rolled his eyes. "No shit. So do I."

"Well," started Jeff, sensing he'd better cut in before the snowballing down the hill began, "seriously, as much as I like to perform and it excites us to do it, is it worth it continuing on this tour when we can just cut it and go home now? We can schedule another one elsewhere sooner than we planned -but is all of this worth the excitement to perform here?"

George ticked off on his fingers. "Mick's sick -how many times has he gotten sick? -and that's not including the times we've been sick. We've gotten left behind and separated in places, we've had some performances in places that were hell to deal with with all the security issues..."

"We've already been here for months on end -it's not like we're bailing on it after one or two either -it's been the better part of a year," added Jeff.

"Well, is Mick really 'sick', per say?" asked George, making air quotes. "Because he hasn't been showing signs of actually being sick with something. Or is it just-?"

"He's definitely dehydrated," said Don. "Which is believable, since it seems we can't go one tour without more than one incident with that. But there's other stuff too -his heart is pounding, and for him to be that weak and confused -I think he might be having some withdrawals from something too, because he wasn't really into the party scene tonight like he usually is, so he wouldn't have consumed anything."

"Oh, no, he just went backstage and crashed on the couch," confirmed Jeff. "He seemed restless before the show too, like he was overwhelmed with everything."

"It's just too much," groaned George. "Going non-stop, after a while it gets to all of us. We've all had something happen to us, but Mick's the only one of us who hasn't really crashed yet on this tour. I guess this is it."

"Too much," repeated Don. "And now there's this radiation conflict on the upcoming stretch of our tour, which I think we've all decided isn't worth dealing with."

"Well no shit to that either -the hell we want to be dealing with cancer or liver disease or having children with birth defects ten-twenty so years from now," George snapped.

"Did you think I wasn't aware of that, George, or that I wasn't thinking about that when I just said that? For crying out loud; put a damper on it! I mean, we could potentially reschedule to venues further west, but really at this point, I think it's best we call our management, pack it up, and just go home. We've all hit our limit with this place."

"Maybe gone past it," muttered George.

Jeff sighed and leaned his head against George's shoulder.

Frowning, George reached his arm out to lightly hug Jeff against his side.

"You're waiting for us to come to a decision, but you're pretty much ready to go home too, Jeff," stated George, as if asking a question he already knew the answer to.

Jeff nodded. "Never really been homesick on a tour before, but this one's been the one to do it."

Don nodded, meeting eyes with Jeff understandingly.

"And Mick needs to go home, whether he wants to or not," George continued.

"I'm pretty sure he wants to." Don looked up at the clock, seeing it was now 6:00 o'clock. "So I guess that pretty much settles it. We've got a while before we can call management back home, but as soon as we can call there, we sort it out. And in just a few hours, we can call our promoters here about our shows in the radiation worry zone."

George leaned back in his chair tiredly. "I think they'd understand on that one."

"They'd _better_ understand that one," Don said threateningly. "Either way, we've had enough."

_"...Can't take no more,"_ Jeff sang softly as if on cue, provoking a laugh out of both Don and George, and lightening the morose mood as he'd hoped.

"Oh, Jeff," sighed Don. "Thank you for that. We needed it."

"Bless your heart." George ruffled Jeff's hair affectionately.

"Well, it is six, so I guess I'm technically allowed to go check on Mick." Don got up and walked down the hall, leaving George and Jeff to themselves for a bit. 

He didn't expect Mick to be awake, but maybe he would be. As long as he could see that Mick was okay.

Cautiously pushing open Mick's door, not wanting it to squeak if Mick was asleep, Don entered the room and took in Mick's condition.

He was asleep fitfully on the bed, still twitching a bit from muscle cramping. Most likely the dehydration getting his electrolytes off. There was probably some alcohol withdrawal involved in that too. He did have an IV in his arm helping him out though, and his eyes did look less sunken, though he still had pretty bad dark circles under them. 

The most unusual thing to it was how quiet and weak Mick seemed. Still pale in the face and sprawled out. 

It made Don want to drag Mick to the airport on the rolling hospital bed and put him on the first plane back home to California. Slowly, he approached the bed and gently touched the back of his hand to Mick's cheek. He seemed less overheated than before. That was also good.

Mick's eyelids fluttered open weakly.

"D-Don?" he croaked. His vision was blurred and hazy, but the figure in front of him definitely wasn't in navy scrubs or a white lab coat, and seemed the right build.

"Yeah, Mick, I'm here. How are you feeling?"

Mick groaned. 

"Head hurts... 'm'still sore. Wanna get out of this place. I fucking hate that disinfectant smell -s'gross."

Don smiled ever so slightly. If Mick was already complaining about wanting to get out, he had to be headed in the right direction.

"Well, we're going to keep you in here a bit longer," warned Don. "Maybe not until the doctors say so, but I at least want to see that you can stay up on your feet."

Mick nodded defeatedly. "I get it."

Don chose that moment to shift the subject towards better news. He knelt down beside the bed to be on level with Mick.

"So I was talking with Jeff and George."

"Uh-huh?"

"You know how we've been talking about whether we should reschedule the next leg of the tour or not due to the radiation thing, and where we should do it if we did reschedule it?"

Mick turned his head sluggishly to the side to look at Don in the eyes. "Yeah?"

"Well, we were talking just now about whether it was really worth it to reschedule the shows, and if we wanted to do it or not, and I think we all came to an agreement."

"And?"

"Looks like we're going home, Mick. In just a few hours, we're calling our promoters out here, and then we're going to call management back home, and they could have us on the plane headed home in the next couple of days," said Don. "Sound good?"

Mick lay still for a few moments, his reaction delayed as he sorted out the meaning in his fog of exhaustion.

A second later, a grin slowly curled his lips. Don could have sworn he'd never seen such a look of euphoric relief on Mick.

"Oh, that sounds fucking awesome," Mick sighed. "I'd be the first one of us on that plane. I'm so ready." 

He slung his hand over the bed, and Don could see he had curled his hand into horns to express his excitement, but was still too physically run down to hold it up in the air. Laughing inwardly, Don took Mick's hand in his own, giving it a firm squeeze and pushing it to rest back on the bed at Mick's side again.

"I am too, Mick. I definitely am too. We'll get out of here as soon as you're better. It's time to go home."

"I'm feeling better already," declared Mick, despite still sounding pretty weak. 

"Well, go back to sleep so you can be better enough to get out of here soon as possible," Don ordered. He started to turn to head for the door.

"Don?" asked Mick. "Could you ...stay?"

Another thing Mick hated most about hospitals was being forced to stay in a room with monotonous-beeping monitors all alone. Don practically rolled his eyes at himself, but smiled, feeling his heart swell.

He grabbed a chair from the side of the room and pulled it up alongside the bed next to Mick before sitting down.

"Of course."


End file.
